The present inventors have previously developed a protocol inspired by the way in which colonies, of bacteria evolve to adapt to changing environments. This protocol was originally designed for use in an active network in which the switching nodes of the network are capable of performing more than the simple switching functions traditionally assigned to the switching nodes within a data or telecommunications network. The protocol is described in detail in the following published International patent applications: WO 01/59991; WO 02/23817; WO 02/073889, the contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by way of reference.
The protocol is described in greater detail in the above described applications, but in brief, the protocol enables the active nodes to swap small chunks of software (often referred to as nodal policies), each of which controls a corresponding chunk of functionality of the node, between one another to modify the functionality of each node accordingly. This is analogous to the way in which bacteria within a colony swap small pieces of genetic material with one another to alter the functionality of individual bacteria. The swapping is controlled simply by permitting a “successful” bacterium to distribute chunks of genetic material to the colony which are then picked up by neighbouring bacteria which are less “successful”. In the natural case of bacterial colonies, success is determined by the amount and rate of metabolising nutrients to generate energy. In the analogous protocol designed by the present inventors, the success of individual nodes is determined by the amount and rate at which services are performed by the nodes.
The inventors anticipated that the protocol could be applied usefully to ad hoc networks formed by a number of simple devices having limited processing and communicating capabilities. However they had not actually attempted to do so and so it was not known how well the technology would transfer to such an environment.